Michael Schoenholtz

From the large oeuvre of Michael Schoenholtz twelve smaller sculptures have been assembled for the exhibition; amongst others “Spine”, “Breathing – Exhaling” ” Two-handed “, “Seven Lives” , “Twelve Plus One”. The titles are a reference to the interdependence of the individual works – a deliberate arrangement, which always circle around life, the organic, and the human figure.
None of the work has a static character or does it convey visually its severity. The works have been joined by assembling the parts into a whole piece. In the same manner, similarly casted and edited elements are put together to form a single sculpture by moving and rotating them. Michael Schoenholtz works with stone or cast stone . His stone of choice is limestone – a sedimentary rock , in which fossilized organisms are trapped. A fossilized nature – work with and about life. Anyone who walks next to his work and decides to open himself to it in an observing manner, soon notices that there is not one but many approaches and that a dominant main view doesn’t exist. The work requires movement.
Since the beginning Schoenholtz takes as his starting point the human figure – many lying , squatting figures , bodies , torsos , fragments of bodies , hands, fingers , arms arose. A work facing the entire life. Since 1999 and 2005/2006 he turned increasingly to certain numbers. Not only has the Fibonacci sequenced shaped his work, The figures 5/7/12 have had a fundamental importance in later pieces.
The numbers are not only mathematically interesting like primes , etc. , they have been fundamentally presented in all cultures; they are essential for the exploration of the world and to the human body. The hand has five fingers, we have five lumbar vertebra , seven cervical vertebrae and twelve thoracic vertebrae . The spine , the center of every living thing can be seen twice in the exhibition, in 2007 and in 2011. The exploration of the depths of the “Inhaling and Exhaling” people came into the center of his artistic interest . It this exhibition it unites the past and the future.